I live in Barnwell, SC. Projected to be the fastest growing town in the USA until Jimmy Carter denied a license for the reprocessing plant being built. They now use it as a training area for terrorist attacks on other nuclear facilities. We are also home to the Savannah River Site. A government owned facility of 300 square miles that has been in operation since the early 1950's. We can overcome any technical problem except politics.
Thanks for the video! 23:00 I've seen trench 94 in person with my father who worked at "The Evaporator," the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, and the trench is HUGE. The plan is to close the trench with the Sub cross sections serving as the containment vessels for the nuclear reactor, fuel and all, because it's considered a higher level of containment that is currently required and is estimated to be secure in the dry climate of eastern Washington indefinitely. "The Evaporator" is an interesting bit of technology, It's the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, and my dad described it as being a giant tea kettle that "you never want to boil" when he let me run the simulator they have on site. It takes low density liquid nuclear waste and condenses it for long term storage, by removing the water into a huge water vessel that is then filtered and cleaned, with the waste product being moved back into a secure holding tank, while the cleaned and tested water(almost literally only H20) is released back into the Columbia River(where huge sturgeon like to swim in the relatively warm water, since the Columbia is quite cold). At the same site they have a mothballed Plutonium refinement plant adjacent to the Evaporator, a lake that my father said actually glows green at night from the glass ingots that contain old fissile material from a much earlier containment programs. It was super interesting to visit the site in person, and see the work that is done to contain and reclaim waste from the nuclear escalation era.
The prob;em with Uranium fueled nuclear reactors is, they typically operate at several atmospheric pressures and need a very strong Ferro Concrete containment vessell and several Chimneys to vent steam. Bui;lding them typically cost ssabout $500,000 which takes about ten years . Onl;y 3% of the energy is extracted from fuel rods before they crack and have to be replaced., reprocessing the uranium is not an option as it is cheaper to manufacture new rods from yellow cake, therefor cracked rods have to be stored in a high security atomic waste dump and be guarded at great expense for 100,000 years, this is to prevent terrorists gaining acces to atomic waste and making dirty bombs which will render out cities unlivable. Whereas if Thorium is used as a fuel no Ferro Concrete pressure vessel is necessary as they operate at normal air pressure, no chimneys are requiresd as Liquid Salt is the coolant and because they do not need to be located near water they can be located anywhere such as a desert or on Mars. In using Thorium as a fuel typically 97% of the energy can be extracted before the fuel ihas to be replaced.
The real reason they don’t use fast reactors is it cuts into the profits of making fuel rods. You need watch Sabin Hossenfelder video on how much nuclear waste there really is. She clears up how much and how it’s stored. There are new nuclear waste sites under construction and she tells you where they are. The sites not only store but recycle nuclear waste.
Russia is building full cycle facility that works on fast neutrons. It can burn minor actinides and use it as reactor fuel. This means all nuclear waste is a fuel for this plant.
I will remind you that India is rich in Thorium and have spent over $100 billion equivalent and has no reactor working. This is an expensive idea and it is not completely thought out yet.
Ideally, there would be a progression of reactors that could taper off of full power while maximizing the power source. Even something compared to putting one battery into a remote with the other one dead. Idk, but seemingly a set of reactors that size down so they're not required to put out max power to be efficient. What do you think?
@philly2ks gas, hydro , pumped hydro as spickers for peak demand, and to a lesser extent, molten salt would do a better job at less than a tenth the price with a much larger safety margin .
Around the 16:00 mark, you called reactors that turn waste into fuel 'fast reactors.' In itself, that is inaccurate. The correct term is 'breeder reactor' because it breeds fissile material from non-fissile material. There are essentially two types: slow and fast breeders. A fast breeder produces substantially more fuel than the reactor can use, so the excess has to be shipped off to other reactors. However, most commonly the fuel produced is plutonium, usually high-grade (i.e. concentration) which is relatively easy to turn into a nuclear explosive. (Plutonium can have uncontrolled chain reactions just by putting enough of it together; with uranium-235, you have to compress the nuclei closer than they would normally exist, which requires precisely placed conventional explosives to set it off into a nuclear explosion). Shipping explosive-grade plutonium all over the country was deemed to much of a risk of hijacking, etc. However, slow breeders produce only as much fuel as they use. They generally require some on-site processing it to get rid of pollutants that would interfere with the reactions, but still, not fissile materials leave the reactor site, and in fact, the concentrations are insufficient for a nuclear explosion. There are many proposed designs, at varying levels of detail. The first of anything is generally expensive, but once a safe reliable design is chosen and the first built, the following versions should not be prohibitively expensive.
So knowledgable, yet full of wishful thinking. There's only a couple solutions to safely storing spent fuel. Do you know that. No! One is to dig down in the earth 18,000ft, the other is rocket launch into sun. Both extremely expensive. Tesla theorized and later experiments confirm, fissile material loses all radioactivity at depths greater than 17,000 ft. in the earth. All other solutions are eventually unsafe. Are you a lib? What's the point of recycling if the national debt has to increase by 2x! Just dispose it! Or, you pay for it if that's what you want. That's real wishful thinking
Like he said...'' he's not a scientist...and the system is way complicated ''...give him some slack...at least he has given the difficulty in the process an airing
@@ChristophersMum That's fine. I wasn't slamming him. But clarity is needed. Understanding basic distinctions helps the discussion. It's like discussions of vaccines in which on the one hand some people have taken to reject all vaccines and others call anybody who questions the safety and efficacy of any particular vaccines 'anti-vaxxer'. When we are not clear on the situation, not meaningful discussion can be had.
Love these videos this is why I keep watching your channel because I’m fully invested in going to school under my disability to study nuclear engineering
I don’t know if you’re gonna get to it, but the French have spent fuel rod reactors instead of running for five years you feel them up and they were on for about 40 years.
*There are many type of BREEDER reactors including LFTR types. Bury it fine but we should be ready to dig it all back up when we develop the TECH to extract the remaining energy.*
Nikola Tesla theorized all radiation from nuclear material would be nullified if below earth surface 17,500ft. Later experiments have confirmed it as fact. There is a safe solution to disposal but not on the surface of earth or even under the surface until getting to 17,500 foot. Do you know why it has no radiation at that depth?
There was a commercial nongovernmental nuclear fuel rod reprocessing faculty here in the United States. Actually quite a big one. And located in a top 10 population USA City. It operated quietly and profitably but ultimately the company decided to shut it all down. The buildings were bulldozed back to dirt. I was an Engineer who worked in that facility. There are nuclear (re)processing plants in the USA that are owned and operated by the US Government.
As a Nuclear Health Physicist, I was annoyed by your previous video, as it was deceptive in its lack of complete information. You have thoroughly redeemed yourself. This was good.
Originally in the 50's the USA nuclear plants were supposed to recycle the waste, but the powers to be refuse to do it. More profit that way. And it could be made into bombs
Technically, we do. Uranium depleted ammo in tanks and other artillery shells, maybe even with other naval ships. Especially ATACMs multiple ammo barrage missiles.
The problem with DU shells is that the uranium dust it creates is very troublesome.. especially when it ends up in a town's water supply, like in Iraq...
@@SeedlingNL Indeed, you can find a documentary on the effects of DU rounds. It causes birth defects similar to what was seen after Chernobyl and around Russian nuclear testing sites. America is at fault too with the testing that was done on Bikini atoll and the natives that lived on islands nearby.
@@SeedlingNLAs a certain radiochemist said "You want to remember uranium is not only radioactive but also is a heavy metal with a toxicology all its own." And from those in the threads of conversation his name would be recognized.
@@SeedlingNL a single uranium particle generated from the collision of the DU anti tank rod hitting the armor is thought to eventually cause cancer in 20 years. check out the documentary "Beyond Treason"
Molten salt reactors can burn about 98% of the fuel. Also, Thorium Molten Salt reactors can use uranium from repressed fuel as a kick starter for the better neutron economy or be co-fuled with uranium, further using repressed, spent rods
You know, back in the day, the old "Triple Expansion" steam engines used the "spent" steam pressure... The first set of cylinders were the smallest, and used "high pressure" steam right out of the boiler. The second set was a middle sized set of pistons, but then the cooling steam was sent to a third set of "large" pistons that were "low pressure" before the steam was recondensed and sent back to the boiler. My point is this: Spent fuel still is hot (thermally hot). It needs to be kept in a "cooling pool", but that decay heat is largely wasted. But what if we found ways to harness that heat, which right now is just wasted? Kind of like how the old "triple expansion" steam engines continued to use the "low pressure" steam that was almost spent. Yeah, you're not getting the same power that spins the high-pressure turbines, but there's so much decay heat that is just wasted...
When fuel rods in a nuclear reactor are “spent,” or no longer usable, they are removed from the reactor core and replaced with fresh fuel rods. The spent fuel rods are still highly radioactive and continue to generate significant heat for decades.
Why didn't you cover India's nuclear power plant. You know, the one that will use thorium when it's done being built. The main reason the US doesn't use thorium is because you can't make bombs from the waste. Making bombs are apparently more important than people's safety.
China has a operating thorium reactor already in general use. But you are correct most nuclear plants are built for nuclear bomb and medical isotope production.
A) REPROCESSING Reprocess spent fuel with fast breeder reactors, as France has been doing for decades. B) THREAT SECURITY Store spent or unspent fissile material with military three-level fenced zones. Innermost double-fence zone has guards with dogs within sight of each other. C) WE USE both A) and B) to maximize military nuclear safety. It costs more, but we can't afford anything less for civilian reactors.
@@kathrynck Interesting. I remember correcting an Austrian friend in high school on it, and he was genuinely appreciative as English was about his third language. I guess some people slip through the cracks. I just notice it more in American media, even movies, that's all.
@@russellcollins4291 To be fair, when people talk fast it can be hard to tell. I DO see it spelled wrong fairly often, maybe I've just tuned my ears to ignore it being pronounced wrong. American media/tv/movies is pretty much unilaterally "lowest common denominator" in content. Half the country doesn't even consume it anymore. On the other hand, half the country does, so I don't mean to paint a picture of a utopia exactly ;) Though it's not necessarily the half which the media would lead one to believe. They at least know enough to flatter their audience. The geography stereotype is true though. 90% could be beat on a geography test by a trained dog.
@@kathrynck It's sad, but the anti-intellectualism is real over here, too. I find it interesting how much capitalism has changed the language, too. For instance, Americans generally spell colour without a U, since people had to pay by the letter to advertise in the newspaper. It stuck.
Umm, fast reactors are what we use today. They produce helium, plutonium, and nuclear waste. Thorium reactors are the ones that burn through all of the nuclear material. But then there's no Helium or Bombs, see. I could see a world with both kinds of reactors being used for efficiency and radioactive pollution control. Burying it or throwing it in the ocean are both horrible ideas.
Also it's not taken out of the pools "if possible" it's when possible, because it's done as soon as they isotopes decay enough that it can't cook it's self and release a bunch of radioactive material into the air.
That less spent fuel than you would think, 1 cubic meter of nuclear waste is 19.05 tonnes so it's 4199 cubed meters, so a little bit over 4/5 of a football field of nuclear waste if it was 1 meter deep, which sounds like a lot, but that's like 70 years worth of spent fuel.
Fascinating. I respect the anonymity. Adds to the intrigue. I get to imagine what you look like. I know there is at least a goatee. But I think it’s just the chin.
22:00 Uh, yes there is actually, it was Doctor Otto Octavius from Spider-Man 2, he created what I considered to be a comically small micro star that looked nearly identical to our sun from a drop of Tritium, and it had then become self sustaining and starting sucking matter into it, the only way to stop it was to drown it in water and they dumped it into the river. I honestly find it hilarious that even stopped it.
Processing nuclear waste isn't expensive when you get plutonium nuclear warheads in the process. Much if the Nuclear powers utilize this process to increase their stockpile.
That's how plutonium is created to begin with.. it doesn't occur in nature beyond trace quantities in uranium deposits, so it's always made in reactors. It's cheaper to go straight from uranium to plutonium, as you produce less fission products, but at the cost of energy production loss.
Plutonium from power reactors is usable in bombs. The even weight isotopes like Pu 238 interfere with detonation. The reactors that make Pu for bombs are quite different from power reactors and would be inefficient at generating electricity.
There is another means by which fission products can be reused. Since these are radioactive, they can be the base source for nuclear batteries. Similar to the plutonium based batteries used on the Voyager spacecraft. With proper shielding such batteries could last at least as long as the plutonium ones . These have been going for 45 years now. Imagine, a smart phone that never needs recharging.
because it's currently more expensive to recycle it than dig up new uranium, which is part of the reason why there is so much hype around molten fuelled salt reactors because your fuel is already dissolved in the salt which you have to melt down the fuel rods, devolve them into a solvent then, process them then turn them back into fuel rods. Where as with a molten fuelled salt reactor you just have to process them. And theoretically you can do online reprocessing where you reprocess the fuel in operation, there are multiple benefits to this that reduce the cost of reprocessing, first you can have the reprocessing equipment housed next to the reactor which is already going to be shielded for radiation, also the reprocessing equipment doesn't need to be anywhere near the size of a standalone reprocessing plan because your reprocessing the fuel regularly if not almost constantly rather than after 18 months having to reprocess all that fuel in 1 shot and having to have a special facility that can remove the pellets from the cladding, melt down the pellets, dissolve the pellets in molten salt, reprocess the fuel, extract reprocessed fuel from the molten salt and all this needs to be done in heavily radiation shielded rooms. Then finally turn the fuel back into pellets and clad it, although honestly you would probably send the fuel in the form of yellow cake to a plant that already makes fuel rods, but it's still a cost. Although even if you still want to do reprocess the fuel in a centralized location it still provides you of the benefit of cutting all the steps apart from 3 form the reprocessing sequence transporting it to the reprocessing facility, reprocessing the fuel then transporting it back. Although I think due to how much the fuel salt would add to the bulk of transporting the fuel you would want to do online reprocessing although for proliferation concerns the government might force you to do it in a centralized and heavily controlled place. In which case you probably at least want to be able to remove some of the salt content to make transporting the fuel more economical, also molten fuelled salt reactors have improved safety, can theoretically be built much cheaper due to their relatively low pressure operation like not 300 atmospheres of pressure, more like 6, which is a lot easier to build something that will absolutely contain 6 atmospheres of pressure, no need for a massive dome to contain the expansion of water if it were ever to be breached because the fuel salt is only kept under pressure to stop gaseous fission products bubbling out in the wrong place and getting trapped in the wrong place within the reactor.
Yeah, reactor sites.... I made(welder) waste containment units. The guys from said nuclear facilty replied when i asked what they do with the waste. They answered that they bury it in the mountains....
[Weakness in security at nuclear plants] I'm surprised you didn't mention the break-in at ORNL by a couple of elderly protesters--a couple of 80 year old nuns if I recall correctly. They just waltzed into the facility, poured either red paint or blood all over the admin building offices, then had to furiously wave at the cameras to get someone's attention that they were there. Needless to say, the security contractor lost their contract over that. How do I know all of this? I live near there.
Fast reactors are not reactors that use nuclear waste. You may be thinking of Radio Isotope Thermal Generators. A fast reactor is a reactor that uses a fast fuel. That is, a fuel that can fission with a high-energy neutron. U235 is a thermal fuel, meaning that the neutron must be slowed down (or thermalized) in order to be absorbed (though some fast fission does happen, it's a small percentage). We like thermal reactors because they tend to be inherently stable.
Well actually there is just nuclear waste generated 98% of it is LLW which can be disposed of by burying it 5 feet under the ground, it's stuff like PPE used in a nuclear faclity which probably doesn't have a significantly more radiation, but has to be disposed as if it was.
In Australia we produce Uranium but we do NOT produce nuclear waste as you stated. We used to have a single small reactor which was used mostly for medical isotopes as far as I know, which I believe was decommissioned sometime in the last couple of decades, but we have never had an energy producing reactor or any noteworthy quantity of waste from that single tiny reactor. We are about to get nuclear submarines though so I guess there will be some waste eventually ! Ironic that we get nuclear subs before nuclear power...
Strontium-90 is a waste but is also a power source for nuclear batteries and IS in use in at least one powerplant. The inventor, Paul Maurice Brown, died racing his car and I'm willing to bet his patent is expired. There is SO MUCH of this waste, we could simply shut down every reactor and just switch to using his batteries that run exclusively off Strongtium90. That said, other isotopes can be used. They're just not as powerful.
The waste produced by nuclear reactors is minimal compared to that generated by petroleum and even so-called “green” energy sources like wind and solar. As for concerns about nuclear weapons, the cat is already out of the bag, and those fears have to be addressed in a different way. If the United States was truly concerned about nuclear weapons, it wouldn’t have detonated two of them in Japan.
Jet produced Q10 power for >40 seconds. Or in English an Output 10 x Input. The 1st Large Reactor is under construction and 6 Tritium Reactors are under Construction for Tritium Fuel. It will be cooled by Cryogenic Helium at 4k. -270'c. The Fuel will be Deuterium Tritium Isotopes to produce a constant Fusion Stream. The Containment shell will operate at 400'c with an internal Fusion Temperature of 10 Millionk. Each Magnet will operate at 16 Tesla. Cryogenic Injectors will be able to cool the reactor with Cryogenically Frozen Helium Gas if needed for rapid shut down.
Nuclear spent material could be used to heat entire office buildings. They could heat a small city in the winter time and a series of stirling hot air engines could generate loads of electricity on the 400 F temperatures during the summer.
THANK YOU! I thought I had a handle on nuclear waste reprocessing, through fast breeder reactors. It seems all involved plutonium production, which is a huge disappointment because of no peaceful endgame product. 😮
I wanna get into astrophysics phd . Can you guys may be suggest some good universities ? Also i have a masters degree in Astrophysics. So just the names of the college/university will help
Wait so that means nuclear reactors is just a fancy/overengineered steam engines? I thought they use those uranium/plutonium to create battery cells to power an entire city.
I must be missing something out of the way this all works. So they make these nuclear rods which give off heat that is then used to super heat water to turn into steam which turns turbines. Which the same as gas or coal power stations correct. Both gas and coal gets used and that leaves almost nothing as waste apart from the fumes given off from burning it. This nuclear waste you say is then kept under water for 6 to 7 years under water that is constantly cooled down as it's extremely hot still and is clearly hot which isn't that the whole point of having it in the first place so he it needs cooling diwn for many years and is still giving off all this heat why is that heat steam being used to generate more electricity. Surely the massive amount of heat from these spent rods and the amount of time needed to cool them down can be used also. Wouldn't it be better to let the heat given off to be harnessed by the circulation of the water that's constantly being heated to stay at a temperature that is useful. These circulation pumps need electricity to operate 24/7 yet the process to contain the waste is just a lesser version of super heating water to power turbines. The handling of waste is still all about the heat given off from it. Wouldn't increasing the water cooling temperature to the point it can still generate boiling water still be able to turn the blades to produce more electricity. Maybe its unstable which would explain why this isn't done. Its same same process to generate heat just one is called usable and then its called spent.
Breaking a spent Fuel bundle down into Pellets , 4 pellets placed into a strong bar would give every house a Heat source that will last a century. ( Tho the energy companies would loose trilliions )
I was looking for this comment because why are we included in reprocessing fuel if very few countries do it when we don't produce power with nuclear...
Australia has around one third of the world's uranium resources, and is the world's third ranking producer, accounting for approximately 10 per cent of annual global production. You guys could literally have free energy if it weren't for all the fear-mongering behind nuclear power.
If you are saying Sellafields is the second largest reprocessing plant in the world you need to colour the U.K. light green on your map of countries reprocessing.
0:37 it’s because of radioactive decay. Once the decay takes place it can no longer produce radiation level required to power the station and its to risky to handle radioactive byproducts it’s called radiological contamination at that point and it will cause a huge risk of health problems trying to ship it elsewhere and reuse it without sacrificing health. You need to keep exposable radiation levels as low as reasonably achievable to not submit the workers into a cut or chronic radiation. Like I said once the radioactive decay takes place it’s like haveing a batter with a little bit of juice that turns your device on for a second before it powers off again. Radiation doesn’t power the generators radiation turns water into steam that powers the generators. You can’t use dead battery’s to power your gameboy and you can use elector fuel undergone radioactive decay to power cities except this battery becomes “poisonous” to our health and environment. Im gunna watch the whole video and think about adding a comment to my comment
Also our nuclear waste is monitored by our DOT to make sure it is what it is and goes to where it’s suppose to go so no one steals it for what you stated about foreign countries
I would love to have someone do a story on the nightmare in Russia and their nightmare disposal sites and nightmare lack of environmental protections. I have read several books on the nightmare of the nuclear waste in Russia and how they have entire cities that are so polluted they cannot be used for tens of thousands of years and massive areas contaminated.
I think it would be practical to use spent uranium fuel rods and resulting plutonium for space probes. It could be repurposed and then used for long duration space missions, I mean, right? Just a thought.
It already does in the rods as they are being used, but the created p239 is also being used. As the u235 levels drop the stable levels p239 isn't enough to keep the rods in the desired range. Recycling can and does isolate the low levels p239 and u235 from old rods then mixed to make new MOX rods. The problem is the other stuff. Like recycling paper isn't that hard, but taking in account all sources the added plastics, inks, and other foreign material needing to be dealt with makes it much nicer to just start with a new tree.
All too complex, and with dictators and crazy people, security is at risk. Recycling doesn't sound very effecient, considering the half life and safety issues around plutonium. 😮
I live in Barnwell, SC. Projected to be the fastest growing town in the USA until Jimmy Carter denied a license for the reprocessing plant being built. They now use it as a training area for terrorist attacks on other nuclear facilities. We are also home to the Savannah River Site. A government owned facility of 300 square miles that has been in operation since the early 1950's. We can overcome any technical problem except politics.
From Oregon and I’ve been to that facility! We have a drone event there every year!
Thanks for the video!
23:00 I've seen trench 94 in person with my father who worked at "The Evaporator," the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, and the trench is HUGE. The plan is to close the trench with the Sub cross sections serving as the containment vessels for the nuclear reactor, fuel and all, because it's considered a higher level of containment that is currently required and is estimated to be secure in the dry climate of eastern Washington indefinitely.
"The Evaporator" is an interesting bit of technology, It's the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, and my dad described it as being a giant tea kettle that "you never want to boil" when he let me run the simulator they have on site. It takes low density liquid nuclear waste and condenses it for long term storage, by removing the water into a huge water vessel that is then filtered and cleaned, with the waste product being moved back into a secure holding tank, while the cleaned and tested water(almost literally only H20) is released back into the Columbia River(where huge sturgeon like to swim in the relatively warm water, since the Columbia is quite cold). At the same site they have a mothballed Plutonium refinement plant adjacent to the Evaporator, a lake that my father said actually glows green at night from the glass ingots that contain old fissile material from a much earlier containment programs. It was super interesting to visit the site in person, and see the work that is done to contain and reclaim waste from the nuclear escalation era.
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The prob;em with Uranium fueled nuclear reactors is, they typically operate at several atmospheric pressures and need a very strong Ferro Concrete containment vessell and several Chimneys to vent steam.
Bui;lding them typically cost ssabout $500,000 which takes about ten years .
Onl;y 3% of the energy is extracted from fuel rods before they crack and have to be replaced., reprocessing the uranium is not an option as it is cheaper to manufacture new rods from yellow cake, therefor cracked rods have to be stored in a high security atomic waste dump and be guarded at great expense for 100,000 years, this is to prevent terrorists gaining acces to atomic waste and making dirty bombs which will render out cities unlivable.
Whereas if Thorium is used as a fuel no Ferro Concrete pressure vessel is necessary as they operate at normal air pressure, no chimneys are requiresd as Liquid Salt is the coolant and because they do not need to be located near water they can be located anywhere such as a desert or on Mars.
In using Thorium as a fuel typically 97% of the energy can be extracted before the fuel ihas to be replaced.
The real reason they don’t use fast reactors is it cuts into the profits of making fuel rods. You need watch Sabin Hossenfelder video on how much nuclear waste there really is. She clears up how much and how it’s stored. There are new nuclear waste sites under construction and she tells you where they are. The sites not only store but recycle nuclear waste.
But don't build one on the shore next to a major fault line.
Its so stupid that we are storing all the waste, instead of using it. It is all still completely useful material.
it could also be a useful resource if for some reason it becomes unavailable due to shortages or long term conflicts...
It’s always stupid… until someone does the “unthinkable” and año the vast swath of earth become uninhabitable for a century.
Tell Haliburton
did you watch the whole video?
@ yeah actually… that’s why I was commenting on what seannabaine said.
Russia is building full cycle facility that works on fast neutrons. It can burn minor actinides and use it as reactor fuel. This means all nuclear waste is a fuel for this plant.
What they don’t tell you is how many workers die, get seriously ill or have long term effects that affect genetics and generations to come. 😅
We care about our people more than them and don’t want to work with question marks like they do
And surprisingly the casualties are low. Like all time low.
This is a great argument for developing Thorium nuclear plants.
Sure is
I will remind you that India is rich in Thorium and have spent over $100 billion equivalent and has no reactor working. This is an expensive idea and it is not completely thought out yet.
China has already developed and been using a thorium plant for a while now.
Ideally, there would be a progression of reactors that could taper off of full power while maximizing the power source. Even something compared to putting one battery into a remote with the other one dead. Idk, but seemingly a set of reactors that size down so they're not required to put out max power to be efficient. What do you think?
@philly2ks gas, hydro , pumped hydro as spickers for peak demand, and to a lesser extent, molten salt would do a better job at less than a tenth the price with a much larger safety margin .
Around the 16:00 mark, you called reactors that turn waste into fuel 'fast reactors.' In itself, that is inaccurate. The correct term is 'breeder reactor' because it breeds fissile material from non-fissile material. There are essentially two types: slow and fast breeders. A fast breeder produces substantially more fuel than the reactor can use, so the excess has to be shipped off to other reactors. However, most commonly the fuel produced is plutonium, usually high-grade (i.e. concentration) which is relatively easy to turn into a nuclear explosive. (Plutonium can have uncontrolled chain reactions just by putting enough of it together; with uranium-235, you have to compress the nuclei closer than they would normally exist, which requires precisely placed conventional explosives to set it off into a nuclear explosion). Shipping explosive-grade plutonium all over the country was deemed to much of a risk of hijacking, etc. However, slow breeders produce only as much fuel as they use. They generally require some on-site processing it to get rid of pollutants that would interfere with the reactions, but still, not fissile materials leave the reactor site, and in fact, the concentrations are insufficient for a nuclear explosion. There are many proposed designs, at varying levels of detail. The first of anything is generally expensive, but once a safe reliable design is chosen and the first built, the following versions should not be prohibitively expensive.
So knowledgable, yet full of wishful thinking. There's only a couple solutions to safely storing spent fuel. Do you know that. No! One is to dig down in the earth 18,000ft, the other is rocket launch into sun. Both extremely expensive. Tesla theorized and later experiments confirm, fissile material loses all radioactivity at depths greater than 17,000 ft. in the earth. All other solutions are eventually unsafe. Are you a lib? What's the point of recycling if the national debt has to increase by 2x! Just dispose it! Or, you pay for it if that's what you want. That's real wishful thinking
Like he said...'' he's not a scientist...and the system is way complicated ''...give him some slack...at least he has given the difficulty in the process an airing
china made one not so long ago
Russia does not consider Plutonium hijacking a concern. Their entire breeder programme was fast reactors with very high breeding ratios (> 4:1).
@@ChristophersMum That's fine. I wasn't slamming him. But clarity is needed. Understanding basic distinctions helps the discussion. It's like discussions of vaccines in which on the one hand some people have taken to reject all vaccines and others call anybody who questions the safety and efficacy of any particular vaccines 'anti-vaxxer'. When we are not clear on the situation, not meaningful discussion can be had.
Love these videos this is why I keep watching your channel because I’m fully invested in going to school under my disability to study nuclear engineering
I don’t know if you’re gonna get to it, but the French have spent fuel rod reactors instead of running for five years you feel them up and they were on for about 40 years.
*There are many type of BREEDER reactors including LFTR types. Bury it fine but we should be ready to dig it all back up when we develop the TECH to extract the remaining energy.*
Nikola Tesla theorized all radiation from nuclear material would be nullified if below earth surface 17,500ft. Later experiments have confirmed it as fact. There is a safe solution to disposal but not on the surface of earth or even under the surface until getting to 17,500 foot. Do you know why it has no radiation at that depth?
There was a commercial nongovernmental nuclear fuel rod reprocessing faculty here in the United States. Actually quite a big one. And located in a top 10 population USA City. It operated quietly and profitably but ultimately the company decided to shut it all down. The buildings were bulldozed back to dirt. I was an Engineer who worked in that facility.
There are nuclear (re)processing plants in the USA that are owned and operated by the US Government.
Thorium reactors can also use most of this spent fuel instead. Much less waste products, and most of the waste useful in medical applications.
and munitions?
Depleted Uranium is my favorite. It has so many different applications due to it being minimally radioactive & incredibly dense.
What do you think the Abram tanks are made out of ? (Depleted Uranium)
@arthurzettel6618 It only fires Depleted Uranium Sabots. It's made out of Cold, Rolled Steel. It has explosive reactive shielding though
As a Nuclear Health Physicist, I was annoyed by your previous video, as it was deceptive in its lack of complete information. You have thoroughly redeemed yourself. This was good.
Originally in the 50's the USA nuclear plants were supposed to recycle the waste, but the powers to be refuse to do it. More profit that way. And it could be made into bombs
Technically, we do. Uranium depleted ammo in tanks and other artillery shells, maybe even with other naval ships. Especially ATACMs multiple ammo barrage missiles.
The problem with DU shells is that the uranium dust it creates is very troublesome.. especially when it ends up in a town's water supply, like in Iraq...
@@SeedlingNL No one said it was healthy, but it is recycling nuclear waste instead of stockpiling it.
@@SeedlingNL Indeed, you can find a documentary on the effects of DU rounds. It causes birth defects similar to what was seen after Chernobyl and around Russian nuclear testing sites. America is at fault too with the testing that was done on Bikini atoll and the natives that lived on islands nearby.
@@SeedlingNLAs a certain radiochemist said "You want to remember uranium is not only radioactive but also is a heavy metal with a toxicology all its own." And from those in the threads of conversation his name would be recognized.
@@SeedlingNL a single uranium particle generated from the collision of the DU anti tank rod hitting the armor is thought to eventually cause cancer in 20 years.
check out the documentary "Beyond Treason"
Molten salt reactors can burn about 98% of the fuel. Also, Thorium Molten Salt reactors can use uranium from repressed fuel as a kick starter for the better neutron economy or be co-fuled with uranium, further using repressed, spent rods
You know, back in the day, the old "Triple Expansion" steam engines used the "spent" steam pressure... The first set of cylinders were the smallest, and used "high pressure" steam right out of the boiler. The second set was a middle sized set of pistons, but then the cooling steam was sent to a third set of "large" pistons that were "low pressure" before the steam was recondensed and sent back to the boiler.
My point is this: Spent fuel still is hot (thermally hot). It needs to be kept in a "cooling pool", but that decay heat is largely wasted. But what if we found ways to harness that heat, which right now is just wasted? Kind of like how the old "triple expansion" steam engines continued to use the "low pressure" steam that was almost spent. Yeah, you're not getting the same power that spins the high-pressure turbines, but there's so much decay heat that is just wasted...
When fuel rods in a nuclear reactor are “spent,” or no longer usable, they are removed from the reactor core and replaced with fresh fuel rods. The spent fuel rods are still highly radioactive and continue to generate significant heat for decades.
Why didn't you cover India's nuclear power plant. You know, the one that will use thorium when it's done being built. The main reason the US doesn't use thorium is because you can't make bombs from the waste. Making bombs are apparently more important than people's safety.
Well screw the u.s!
China has a operating thorium reactor already in general use. But you are correct most nuclear plants are built for nuclear bomb and medical isotope production.
A) REPROCESSING Reprocess spent fuel with fast breeder reactors, as France has been doing for decades.
B) THREAT SECURITY Store spent or unspent fissile material with military three-level fenced zones. Innermost double-fence zone has guards with dogs within sight of each other.
C) WE USE both A) and B) to maximize military nuclear safety. It costs more, but we can't afford anything less for civilian reactors.
7 years to cool down...i had no idea...that's and incredible amount of energy!
They gotta keep that fuel cool so it doesn’t overheat, and it takes years for that to happen
Creating climate change issues?
@@patrickrussell1888 it's not that much heat.
Thank you for being the first American in some time that I've heard pronounce the word 'nuclear' correctly. 😂
Great comment- where the hell did Nookquelure come from? Reelater drives me crazy too, especially when realtors pronounce it that way!
I'm in the US and I don't hear it mispronounced very often. Must be a regional thing.
@@kathrynck Interesting. I remember correcting an Austrian friend in high school on it, and he was genuinely appreciative as English was about his third language. I guess some people slip through the cracks. I just notice it more in American media, even movies, that's all.
@@russellcollins4291 To be fair, when people talk fast it can be hard to tell. I DO see it spelled wrong fairly often, maybe I've just tuned my ears to ignore it being pronounced wrong.
American media/tv/movies is pretty much unilaterally "lowest common denominator" in content. Half the country doesn't even consume it anymore. On the other hand, half the country does, so I don't mean to paint a picture of a utopia exactly ;) Though it's not necessarily the half which the media would lead one to believe. They at least know enough to flatter their audience.
The geography stereotype is true though. 90% could be beat on a geography test by a trained dog.
@@kathrynck It's sad, but the anti-intellectualism is real over here, too. I find it interesting how much capitalism has changed the language, too. For instance, Americans generally spell colour without a U, since people had to pay by the letter to advertise in the newspaper. It stuck.
Umm, fast reactors are what we use today. They produce helium, plutonium, and nuclear waste. Thorium reactors are the ones that burn through all of the nuclear material. But then there's no Helium or Bombs, see. I could see a world with both kinds of reactors being used for efficiency and radioactive pollution control. Burying it or throwing it in the ocean are both horrible ideas.
UNTIL there's a significant profit to be had. It ain't gonna happen.
the moment you showed yourself your anonymity just faded away in multiple ways
We should all have ev’s so we can use more electricity and nuclear waste! We are so clever!
Also it's not taken out of the pools "if possible" it's when possible, because it's done as soon as they isotopes decay enough that it can't cook it's self and release a bunch of radioactive material into the air.
Storing is always temporary as natural erosion will eventually occur and lead to leakage.
Thank you for the information. As always like earned.
Nuclear power is one of the cleanest types of energy that we have and there is no amount of solar panels and wind turbines that can replace it
I don't care what you look like, I like the sound of your voice and way you do your videos, that's what I'm here for
That less spent fuel than you would think, 1 cubic meter of nuclear waste is 19.05 tonnes so it's 4199 cubed meters, so a little bit over 4/5 of a football field of nuclear waste if it was 1 meter deep, which sounds like a lot, but that's like 70 years worth of spent fuel.
Fascinating. I respect the anonymity. Adds to the intrigue. I get to imagine what you look like. I know there is at least a goatee. But I think it’s just the chin.
22:00 Uh, yes there is actually, it was Doctor Otto Octavius from Spider-Man 2, he created what I considered to be a comically small micro star that looked nearly identical to our sun from a drop of Tritium, and it had then become self sustaining and starting sucking matter into it, the only way to stop it was to drown it in water and they dumped it into the river. I honestly find it hilarious that even stopped it.
Idky but feeling sad after no 2nd cup of coffee clip
Super informative video!!! Thank you!!!
Processing nuclear waste isn't expensive when you get plutonium nuclear warheads in the process. Much if the Nuclear powers utilize this process to increase their stockpile.
That's how plutonium is created to begin with.. it doesn't occur in nature beyond trace quantities in uranium deposits, so it's always made in reactors. It's cheaper to go straight from uranium to plutonium, as you produce less fission products, but at the cost of energy production loss.
Humanity already has enough warheads to destroy ourselves several times over.
@@jesses1589That negates your reason for concern as humanity is already there.
@@SeedlingNL, makes me feel secure, considering all the sable rattlers in the world who don't seem too stable, including one just elected. 😢.
Plutonium from power reactors is usable in bombs. The even weight isotopes like Pu 238 interfere with detonation. The reactors that make Pu for bombs are quite different from power reactors and would be inefficient at generating electricity.
There is another means by which fission products can be reused. Since these are radioactive, they can be the base source for nuclear batteries. Similar to the plutonium based batteries used on the Voyager spacecraft. With proper shielding such batteries could last at least as long as the plutonium ones . These have been going for 45 years now. Imagine, a smart phone that never needs recharging.
because it's currently more expensive to recycle it than dig up new uranium, which is part of the reason why there is so much hype around molten fuelled salt reactors because your fuel is already dissolved in the salt which you have to melt down the fuel rods, devolve them into a solvent then, process them then turn them back into fuel rods. Where as with a molten fuelled salt reactor you just have to process them.
And theoretically you can do online reprocessing where you reprocess the fuel in operation, there are multiple benefits to this that reduce the cost of reprocessing, first you can have the reprocessing equipment housed next to the reactor which is already going to be shielded for radiation, also the reprocessing equipment doesn't need to be anywhere near the size of a standalone reprocessing plan because your reprocessing the fuel regularly if not almost constantly rather than after 18 months having to reprocess all that fuel in 1 shot and having to have a special facility that can remove the pellets from the cladding, melt down the pellets, dissolve the pellets in molten salt, reprocess the fuel, extract reprocessed fuel from the molten salt and all this needs to be done in heavily radiation shielded rooms. Then finally turn the fuel back into pellets and clad it, although honestly you would probably send the fuel in the form of yellow cake to a plant that already makes fuel rods, but it's still a cost.
Although even if you still want to do reprocess the fuel in a centralized location it still provides you of the benefit of cutting all the steps apart from 3 form the reprocessing sequence transporting it to the reprocessing facility, reprocessing the fuel then transporting it back. Although I think due to how much the fuel salt would add to the bulk of transporting the fuel you would want to do online reprocessing although for proliferation concerns the government might force you to do it in a centralized and heavily controlled place.
In which case you probably at least want to be able to remove some of the salt content to make transporting the fuel more economical, also molten fuelled salt reactors have improved safety, can theoretically be built much cheaper due to their relatively low pressure operation like not 300 atmospheres of pressure, more like 6, which is a lot easier to build something that will absolutely contain 6 atmospheres of pressure, no need for a massive dome to contain the expansion of water if it were ever to be breached because the fuel salt is only kept under pressure to stop gaseous fission products bubbling out in the wrong place and getting trapped in the wrong place within the reactor.
Yeah, reactor sites.... I made(welder) waste containment units. The guys from said nuclear facilty replied when i asked what they do with the waste. They answered that they bury it in the mountains....
[Weakness in security at nuclear plants] I'm surprised you didn't mention the break-in at ORNL by a couple of elderly protesters--a couple of 80 year old nuns if I recall correctly. They just waltzed into the facility, poured either red paint or blood all over the admin building offices, then had to furiously wave at the cameras to get someone's attention that they were there. Needless to say, the security contractor lost their contract over that. How do I know all of this? I live near there.
Plutonium can be used to power interplanetary or interstellar space travel as onboard batteries.
Fast reactors are not reactors that use nuclear waste. You may be thinking of Radio Isotope Thermal Generators. A fast reactor is a reactor that uses a fast fuel. That is, a fuel that can fission with a high-energy neutron. U235 is a thermal fuel, meaning that the neutron must be slowed down (or thermalized) in order to be absorbed (though some fast fission does happen, it's a small percentage). We like thermal reactors because they tend to be inherently stable.
Well actually there is just nuclear waste generated 98% of it is LLW which can be disposed of by burying it 5 feet under the ground, it's stuff like PPE used in a nuclear faclity which probably doesn't have a significantly more radiation, but has to be disposed as if it was.
In Australia we produce Uranium but we do NOT produce nuclear waste as you stated. We used to have a single small reactor which was used mostly for medical isotopes as far as I know, which I believe was decommissioned sometime in the last couple of decades, but we have never had an energy producing reactor or any noteworthy quantity of waste from that single tiny reactor. We are about to get nuclear submarines though so I guess there will be some waste eventually ! Ironic that we get nuclear subs before nuclear power...
Strontium-90 is a waste but is also a power source for nuclear batteries and IS in use in at least one powerplant. The inventor, Paul Maurice Brown, died racing his car and I'm willing to bet his patent is expired. There is SO MUCH of this waste, we could simply shut down every reactor and just switch to using his batteries that run exclusively off Strongtium90. That said, other isotopes can be used. They're just not as powerful.
The waste produced by nuclear reactors is minimal compared to that generated by petroleum and even so-called “green” energy sources like wind and solar. As for concerns about nuclear weapons, the cat is already out of the bag, and those fears have to be addressed in a different way. If the United States was truly concerned about nuclear weapons, it wouldn’t have detonated two of them in Japan.
Jet produced Q10 power for >40 seconds. Or in English an Output 10 x Input. The 1st Large Reactor is under construction and 6 Tritium Reactors are under Construction for Tritium Fuel. It will be cooled by Cryogenic Helium at 4k. -270'c. The Fuel will be Deuterium Tritium Isotopes to produce a constant Fusion Stream. The Containment shell will operate at 400'c with an internal Fusion Temperature of 10 Millionk. Each Magnet will operate at 16 Tesla. Cryogenic Injectors will be able to cool the reactor with Cryogenically Frozen Helium Gas if needed for rapid shut down.
What happens to the radioactive cooling water after use?
They dilute it 😂😂😂 pour it into lakes and the they will lie to you about it
Turns into bottled drink water.
It can be filtered and cleaned but how many of them actually do that is questionable.
They dump it in the ocean
Nuclear spent material could be used to heat entire office buildings. They could heat a small city in the winter time and a series of stirling hot air engines could generate loads of electricity on the 400 F temperatures during the summer.
Didnt even realise that should be the question but it suddenly seemed so obvious and j was suddenly so interested
You should go back to the old style where we don’t have to see some masked guy being restless on a seat
Definitely
THANK YOU! I thought I had a handle on nuclear waste reprocessing, through fast breeder reactors. It seems all involved plutonium production, which is a huge disappointment because of no peaceful endgame product. 😮
No wonder there is an "inexplicable" public paranoia at The mention of reprocessing. 😮
I wanna get into astrophysics phd . Can you guys may be suggest some good universities ? Also i have a masters degree in Astrophysics. So just the names of the college/university will help
Nuclear battery
Nano Reactors (home size)
thorium reactors
there are so many uses
Its about MORE MONEY to replace the fuel every 5Yrs, which means ppl are paying 10x the amount it should really be.
Nuclear is the way to go so far, especially if we’re gonna be using EVs
you are so good and at some point please bring back "Better Ask Steve". .
Excellent information! Thanks for another great video 🙏😀
Wait so that means nuclear reactors is just a fancy/overengineered steam engines? I thought they use those uranium/plutonium to create battery cells to power an entire city.
Humans still looking for fancier ways to boil water.
1000 yrs of radiation down to 100 not perfect but way better
There's never a plan - I grew up thinking the gov't knew what needed doing....we are too trusting.
Socks to bed = way better sleep deepness🟥😂😂🎉🎉🎉😢😢😢😢
Hello
I must be missing something out of the way this all works. So they make these nuclear rods which give off heat that is then used to super heat water to turn into steam which turns turbines. Which the same as gas or coal power stations correct. Both gas and coal gets used and that leaves almost nothing as waste apart from the fumes given off from burning it. This nuclear waste you say is then kept under water for 6 to 7 years under water that is constantly cooled down as it's extremely hot still and is clearly hot which isn't that the whole point of having it in the first place so he it needs cooling diwn for many years and is still giving off all this heat why is that heat steam being used to generate more electricity. Surely the massive amount of heat from these spent rods and the amount of time needed to cool them down can be used also. Wouldn't it be better to let the heat given off to be harnessed by the circulation of the water that's constantly being heated to stay at a temperature that is useful. These circulation pumps need electricity to operate 24/7 yet the process to contain the waste is just a lesser version of super heating water to power turbines. The handling of waste is still all about the heat given off from it. Wouldn't increasing the water cooling temperature to the point it can still generate boiling water still be able to turn the blades to produce more electricity. Maybe its unstable which would explain why this isn't done. Its same same process to generate heat just one is called usable and then its called spent.
Burning coal produces toxic was and tons of it. It also releases lots of Radon.
Hope this recycling is better than the battery plant
SHOCKING! I can't even talk, I need a 3 month holiday
So like reusing ground coffee until all of the caffeine and flavor is has been extracted…
i noticed your fidget clay, nice! do you sell your masks?
Breaking a spent Fuel bundle down into Pellets , 4 pellets placed into a strong bar would give every house a Heat source that will last a century. ( Tho the energy companies would loose trilliions )
With multiple Peltier chips attached to the Heat output, produces Very cold on the other side of the chip. Used for cooling .
Nuclear fuel, could the fuel be free energy, imagine free energy for everyone now that would change the world forever...
I like how you hint at Thorium reactors by saying experimental reactors
Good to know thank you.
Do we just cool the rods for years, or do we harvest the heat energy while they cool?
I knew I recognized that music...."Scary Interssting."
Fun nuclear fact:
Before gadaffi was executed, he stated that isreal killed jfk over the platonium they had stolen.
The power of the sun in the palm of my hand
-Doc Ock.
Can you do a video on alternative nuclear energy like lftr or msr ( cold reactors, salt reactors )
7 years to cool down? Dayummm
You keep saying Australia, Australia only has 1 nuclear power plant and it's not used for power it's used only for medicine
I was looking for this comment because why are we included in reprocessing fuel if very few countries do it when we don't produce power with nuclear...
Australia has around one third of the world's uranium resources, and is the world's third ranking producer, accounting for approximately 10 per cent of annual global production.
You guys could literally have free energy if it weren't for all the fear-mongering behind nuclear power.
@@runnergo1398 That's because of initially the people reliant on Coal and now the Renewable reliant industries.
If you are saying Sellafields is the second largest reprocessing plant in the world you need to colour the U.K. light green on your map of countries reprocessing.
Don't even think about trying Espresso !!! :D
0:37 it’s because of radioactive decay. Once the decay takes place it can no longer produce radiation level required to power the station and its to risky to handle radioactive byproducts it’s called radiological contamination at that point and it will cause a huge risk of health problems trying to ship it elsewhere and reuse it without sacrificing health. You need to keep exposable radiation levels as low as reasonably achievable to not submit the workers into a cut or chronic radiation. Like I said once the radioactive decay takes place it’s like haveing a batter with a little bit of juice that turns your device on for a second before it powers off again. Radiation doesn’t power the generators radiation turns water into steam that powers the generators. You can’t use dead battery’s to power your gameboy and you can use elector fuel undergone radioactive decay to power cities except this battery becomes “poisonous” to our health and environment. Im gunna watch the whole video and think about adding a comment to my comment
Also our nuclear waste is monitored by our DOT to make sure it is what it is and goes to where it’s suppose to go so no one steals it for what you stated about foreign countries
There is a slight flow of nuclear material by the air once a month, never told the public.
Spider-Man 2 featuring reactor just like Toca Mac and iter came out in the early 2000s
There iß actually more money in studying the issue of nuclear waste than actually solving the problem. Like many other things!!😢
What about the guy that used to do seminars on how he used to swim in those pools? I wonder what happened to him when he started speaking out
I would love to have someone do a story on the nightmare in Russia and their nightmare disposal sites and nightmare lack of environmental protections. I have read several books on the nightmare of the nuclear waste in Russia and how they have entire cities that are so polluted they cannot be used for tens of thousands of years and massive areas contaminated.
More waste is produced from wind than from nuclear and wind waste can't have anything done with it once it's spent.
It’s time that we just accept nuclear as the most logical energy source.
I think it would be practical to use spent uranium fuel rods and resulting plutonium for space probes. It could be repurposed and then used for long duration space missions, I mean, right?
Just a thought.
7:03 handle radioactive material with no protective gear 😂😂😂😂😂😂
wouldnt plutonium make more energy? i feel like if it makes a nuclear bomb, it could make a sh!t ton of energy for homes
It already does in the rods as they are being used, but the created p239 is also being used. As the u235 levels drop the stable levels p239 isn't enough to keep the rods in the desired range. Recycling can and does isolate the low levels p239 and u235 from old rods then mixed to make new MOX rods. The problem is the other stuff. Like recycling paper isn't that hard, but taking in account all sources the added plastics, inks, and other foreign material needing to be dealt with makes it much nicer to just start with a new tree.
I wonder if liquid nitrogen could help speed up the process. Or build a facility in the north pole to help cool it down faster
Death of the Columbia River is no joke
Anybody else noticed that he covers his self in a white substance look at his hand two different shades
I wouldn't doubt if America already used the waste for our food. FIX OUR FOOD FFS
We will destroy ourselves before either day she destroys us…!
All too complex, and with dictators and crazy people, security is at risk. Recycling doesn't sound very effecient, considering the half life and safety issues around plutonium. 😮